Beating Up on Struggling Families–Again (Hour 3)

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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

Hey, good morning.

It's 8.06 now.

Nice to have you here on this Tuesday morning.

May 6, 2025, from Lake Wissota across the civic media radio networks, Amazon, the board in Madison.

Greg is back in an hour at Radio Park for a matinee on air and coming up shortly, we'll be talking to Chad Holmes, finding out what he's working on over at 98.9 WXCO in the Wausau area.

We will also be talking to Dan Schaefer from the recombobulation area and civic media's political editor.

about things happening in the Wisconsin legislature this week.

Some of them interesting, some of them productive, some of them not so much.

Here's what's productive.

A gorgeous forecast that lets you plan things out.

Meteorologist Brittany Merleau is back with us.

We were just talking to Hans Breitenmoser and Sheila Everhard about getting out and doing the field work.

And I didn't want Hans to feel bad, but the way that my wife who grew up on a farm herself put it as you were looking at everybody planting and doing fieldwork and she knew the forecast and she was like, you don't get your fieldwork done by the end of this week.

You're not doing it right.

Which

I know some folks might take issue with that depending on the size of your farm, but she's driven that tractor enough times to know, man, this is the week to get stuff done.

Oh, that is such good news.

And it looks like we're staying nice and dry the entire week.

And that even wants to continue into next week as well.

So we are looking at some perfect temperatures, wonderful conditions.

Of course, you're going to need those sunglasses today.

It is sunny, bright and beautiful, calm winds.

The patchy fog is burned off or temperatures are rising really rapidly.

We're already in the low 40s to low 60s.

Well, Paco, you're at 60 degrees right now and we're going to

keep climbing to those mid to upper 70s statewide today.

So it's going to be beautiful and fantastic.

The only thing we've got going on is some high pollen throughout the entire state.

So if you have allergies, they're going to be flaring up and also a fire danger.

It is very high into Northwest Wisconsin and it is high throughout central and northeast Wisconsin.

So please avoid burning.

Don't toss your cigarette butts.

Watch that tractor equipment as well.

And then tonight, we're going to have another frosty overnight, especially into the northern half of the state.

Tomorrow, we get a little cooler as a cold front drops through upper 50s to 60s north, and we could still see some low 70s by the state line far south, but a chance of a few brief sprinkles could pop up with as that cold front moves through tomorrow, but then another frosty overnight.

So just be careful if you're doing any planting and things like that.

We are still dipping to that freezing mark on occasion with this clear skies and nice sunshine.

Yeah, Sherry was mentioning that.

She's got these big flower pots that she normally has filled by now, but because of travel plans, it's gonna have to wait a couple of weeks and she's afraid that all the good flowers will be gone at the greenhouses.

But she said on the

other hand, she doesn't have that thing of, oh, I gotta move them all in the garage or I gotta cover up with a blanket.

So

if

you do have yours in, you have to be mindful of that this week.

Absolutely.

Yes, tonight and tomorrow night, 100%.

Are

you much of a plant person yourself?

I am.

I love

it.

Oh, see that that was not something that, uh, Sherry had, so we say early in the marriage where, I mean, we killed a cactus once.

That's, that's, we're just not, no, seriously.

And now, I mean, she has just taken to it and there's, there's so much, so many flowers and landscaping.

Anything is her spring allergies are just like yours.

They get bad, but

she's like,

you know, but you still love it out here.

It's,

it's

the price you pay.

Yep, I agree with her.

I'm just like her.

Love

it.

Yep.

All right.

Well, how about Chad Holmes joins us as well from 989 WXCO.

Chad, green thumb over there for you.

I think you're on mute, by the way, before you before you answer that question.

So where are you on the on the planting of things?

Man, I have nothing when it comes to a green thumb.

I have nothing for anything this morning.

I'm still getting used to the timing because I

Uh, I had I was running around now.

I was here packed right.

Let's say oh and Chad Holmes is coming up.

Oh, oh geez I got a sprint back and get hooked in and you just did and close.

Oh man.

It's way too early for all this stuff.

Five minutes, Mr.

Holmes.

Five

minutes.

I know, I know, but no, I am not, I'm not much of a

plant person.

My mom is very much so.

She does all sorts of things at her place, but it has not passed down to me.

Your mom hasn't given you the plant to be like, come on, you can take care of

it.

Oh, she's tried.

She's tried.

Well, yeah, I mean, you've got the greenery over your left shoulder there.

I mean, so

you made

out of plant to that, but it looks perfect.

Brittany, thank you so much.

Have a great day.

You too.

We'll talk to you tomorrow morning.

Uh, yeah.

So Chad, as you, as you wander the hallways of, of 98, nine WXEL waiting for your time, it's because, uh, there's no shortage of other things for you to work on both news and sports this time of year.

Um, how many, how many games are you working, you know, in a typical week right about now?

Oh four.

Okay.

Somewhere in that general area sometimes.

Little in that general area.

Yeah, so okay.

All right yesterday got one today got one Thursday got one Friday,

okay?

I wanted unless you've got something you want to put up first I wanted to get your reaction to the the new story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning that as Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson is warning that congressional Republicans budget will fail without and this is where normally people say

preserving Medicaid or something like that.

But no, he says it will fail without deeper federal spending reductions.

And so everything else that's been done to this point, all of this chaos for Ron Johnson, it's not enough that this multi, multi-millionaire who rigged the tax code to enrich himself and his biggest donors is saying, we haven't cut enough yet.

And I can't imagine that Tom Tiffany will be far behind there.

They're seeing all this damage and going, Nope, we need more.

You know, it actually that is right along the lines of something I was thinking about yesterday as I was scrolling through the news and trying to get you know, all the information out there.

And I came across this discussion on CNN from a representative named David Joyce.

And I think this is the mindset that Ron Johnson has and also Congressman Tom Tiffany has.

The discussion was concerning the dolls and Christmas and But he was saying that the idea that the Christmas trade is already starting to slow down there might be less around I get it then he says this is the money shot right here I think the American people will understand that because the American people understand shared sacrifice And the first thing that pops into my mind is yes

The American people, when asked to, I think, are willing to sacrifice.

But what is the purpose of the sacrifice?

And the only purpose of this sacrifice that I think the Republicans are asking the American people right now is to sacrifice your own standard of living so tax cuts could be had for the richest people in our country.

I don't see anything else that Republicans are asking us to sacrifice for it's the sacrifice So there's more money in that pot for the massive tax cuts that Ron Johnson that Tom Tiffany and Donald Trump and every other Republican seems to want.

Yes, I'm willing to sacrifice for the better good.

I I Guess I'm fortunate in a sense where I'm happy if I have enough money to pay my bills You know, maybe go out once in a while have one

pretty good vacation a year.

But these people, it's just insanity, the greed.

And again, the American people would be sacked.

Hey, I would sacrifice to make sure that our planet is sustainable for future generations.

But not for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

And I think that's the that's the thing that they're not getting is that

you've already pulled the curtain back.

We already know that if you'd have asked, let's sacrifice two to four trillion dollars, okay?

Because our national debt is at 36 trillion dollars.

And so let's really make a shared sacrifice to attack it.

Now, I think some people would say eh, but other people might say, okay, let's really tighten the belt for a short time.

But that's not what this is.

It's to completely offset

tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires there will be no savings to the national debt from this at all zero if anything it's going to be made worse because you know they're going to push the tax cuts through anyway depending even if there aren't enough spending cuts to balance it they're fine growing the national debt right as long as it gets the tax cuts that they want it's just so amazingly disingenuous but

Again, you've got Ron Johnson saying it's not enough.

You've got Derek Van Orden saying, oh, well, I fought against a move to shift 25% of SNAP food benefits onto state budgets.

Well, honestly, I think that's posing for holy pictures.

I don't think that was ever necessarily going to pass.

But if you propose it and then get members to say I'm against it, you create the illusion that you're actually doing something.

And I think that's what we've got right now.

And that is all it is.

It really is.

You're exactly right in calling that out.

And if there is some other higher purpose that all of these cuts are going towards, I have yet to hear it.

And again, it's what the purpose of it and the constant purping from people like Trump that the greatest era of American

prosperity was back in the late 19th century, early 20th century.

Anybody with a brain, anybody has any sense of history realizes the incredible hunger and the incredible stress that were on millions and millions of people during that time.

Yes, the robber barons got rich.

Oh, yeah, we are right now.

And unfortunately, I don't think people really do put it all together in that sense.

The idea that that these policies are going to lead to

incredible strain, not just on the individuals, but on all the services and everything else that are part of the fabric of what this country is in terms of keeping people living at a reasonable level.

So it's amazing that we're talking in this way that the gilded age is somehow some sort of sunshine in the past that we should be trying to go back to.

And

it didn't get better until enough people suffered that it provided a fodder for Upton's and Claire to write the jungle and for all the muckrakers at Harper's and other magazines to expose all this.

Why are we waiting for things to get that bad to then expose it and then make things better when we

We went through all this 125 years ago and yet history is repeating itself here.

That's one aspect of this country that I wish we were a little bit more forward thinking because the only reason that we do have social security and unemployment insurance and a lot of the other New Deal legislation is because we hit rock bottom.

And unfortunately in this country, it feels as though the only way that significant change occurs is when we are in emergency situations instead of being a little bit more proactive.

And I just wish that would be a thread of our American.

psyche that would change.

I think it would make things a lot better.

Well, and there there is sadly a lot of selfishness out there when we talk about shared sacrifice.

Look at all the people who pushed back against basic safeguards during a pandemic.

They could not be inconvenienced during a pandemic to take on anything.

Now that I've left you all of you know, 15 seconds.

Any other stories following that people should be watching for you to work on?

You

know, I think something I'm going to be talking about here in our local segment a few moments is the constant.

There's a real chasm when it comes to this idea of the ethics committee and Doug Denny and it really I find it.

interesting in a lot of ways but also it is something that shows I think again a difference in the thinking of folks and I again I fail to understand why having standards that we expect from some of our elected officials seems to be something that is pushed back by a lot of people and I'm gonna say there's a lot of people there that are saying that we are silly in terms of trying to get some accountability here.

catch Chad on 98 9 WXC on Wasaw.

We're on the Civic Media app and visiting with us a couple times a week.

Thank you, Chad.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Pat.

Dan Schaefer on the way from the heart of America's up north live from Lake Wissota.

Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Krightlo.

You're listening to Civic Media.

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There's a story there about Jake Lawler, executive chef of the vintage brewing company in Madison, who is one of 12 contestants competing for a quarter million dollars on NBC's new cooking show, Yes Chef, judged by Martha Stewart and Jose Andreas.

Each chef was nominated for some kind of distinctive behavior and apparently Jake's is his temper.

We'll see how well that goes over.

In today's newsletter, it includes a feature story about the International Crane Foundation based in Baraboo, helping protect 15 crane species in 50 different countries.

Christian Yellich had a two-run homer and Tobias Meyers pitched five and a third strong innings to help the Brewers beat Houston.

Last night five to one, they will play again this evening.

The pregame begins at 6.05 on several civic media stations.

Head over to the website to learn much more about that.

We'll be talking with Dan Schaefer in a little bit about

the many lawsuits that Governor Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Call have had to file to try to stop some of these budget cuts that, again, were approved by Congress.

And that's the gist of this.

You see, in the olden days, prior to, you know, who shredding constitutional norms, disputes were often settled at the negotiating table, often between Congress and the president.

But now that Congress has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump Inc., thanks to people like Tom Tiffany and Derek Van Norton, it's been up to the courts to try to rein in these extra-legal power plays.

So through Evers and Cull, Wisconsin is now involved in 14 different lawsuits attempting to halt America's slide toward authoritarianism.

The latest one announced yesterday,

challenges the legality of massive cuts to the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services.

This is cuts to spending that Congress has approved, and presidents alone do not have the power to cut those promised funds.

Again, this was established 50 years ago.

And if you ask me, it's taking courts a mighty long time to reaffirm the obvious.

But in announcing the suit against these health and human services cuts, give a listen to the things that Governor Evers says are on the chopping block.

And again, remember, this isn't saving money.

This is simply to take that money and give it to millionaires and billionaires through tax cuts.

And in doing so, it means canceling a critical test for the bird flu virus and terminating top veterinarians overseeing a national response to this emerging health threat.

There's effectively eliminating the Head Start program with no clear plan on how to support Head Start, forcing centers to temporarily close, delays in making payroll, causing many Head Start programs to be at risk of pausing or ceasing operations altogether.

There's terminating the low-income Home Energy Assistance Program to help offset high utility bills for millions of people.

the closing of substance abuse and mental health services administration offices, including shutting down the 988 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Program.

That's one of the things that could be cut if all of these Trump must-cuts go through.

And laying off and terminating approximately a quarter of HHS employees, 20,000 job losses with responsibilities that included, but were not limited to,

vaccine research, responding to lead exposure incidents like the one in Milwaukee, assisting with senior and aging adult programs, among many others.

And again, that's just one of the 14 different lawsuits that Wisconsin is now a part of, trying to make sure that funds that were already approved by Congress get used for their stated purpose.

and don't get sidetracked to offset tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

In the meantime, because again, that's the real story here is the money that's being taken essentially out of your pocket.

These are your tax dollars going for these services.

But to essentially distract and divert attention, you're seeing things like Donald Trump saying over the weekend that the Alcatraz prison

needs to be rebuilt and reopened and he had a long rant post, I know I'm being redundant, about, you know, the dregs of society need to be locked up.

No longer will we tolerate these serial offenders who spread filth and bloodshed and mayhem on our streets.

And so we need to rebuild Alcatraz.

And as Jet Lonsbury puts so well, and so briefly on Twitter, look, when Alcatraz was built,

The murder rate in the U.S.

was 9 per 100,000 people.

The preliminary data for the murder rate in 2024 is about half that.

4.8 per 100,000.

So Trump loves fearmongering.

Republicans loved fearmonger about crime.

I mean, remember Ron Johnson's last campaign?

It was all about fearmongering about Mandela Barnes and crime.

Has he struck you as some kind of a crime fighting superhero since then, or was it a very convenient way to win reelection?

And that's the kind of diversion that we're seeing from Trump.

Along with this other one that I still chuckle at, he wants to now pay migrants $1,000 to self-deport.

Again, how much money does he think people are making or can make in jobs here compared to jobs back in El Salvador?

or Mexico or Venezuela.

It's why your great grandparents or others did whatever they could to come to this country because of opportunity and safety for their families, knowing that there were risks involved.

And again, immigration needs to be reformed in this country.

We need to fix this.

There was a way to fix it last year, a bipartisan bill.

And Donald Trump wanted to instead

demonize the issue, politicize the issue, and use it as a diversion as all of these tax dollars are removed from vital programs that you were expecting to pay for, and instead are going to go to tax cuts.

Hey, thanks for making this place to spend some time as part of your mornings, powered by UpNorth News.

We'll have more with Dan Schaefer right after the Midwest Farm Report for some of you here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Crightlo.

Well, kids, the time has come.

I must contemplate that it is time to capitulate about the benefits when we celebrate and educate all that Dan Schaefer can orchestrate.

So allow us now to re-combobulate with one Dan Schaefer from the re-combobulation area and political editor for Civic Media, because that's the way that he operates.

Mr. Schaefer, how are you?

I'm doing well, Mr. Kratlow.

Thanks so much for having me on and thanks for the wonderfully poetic introduction there this morning.

I appreciate it.

I aim to be the Nipsey Russell of Hype for the recombobulation area if I can pull that off.

How are you?

I'm doing well,

sir, doing well.

Waiting for Spring to really kick in here in Milwaukee, but doing well.

Well, I mean, there's different signs of spring for everybody, and maybe we'll get into it later, but Alashuki shows about some big, ugly boat that's stranded, but maybe that thing is about to finally be moved and that would be a sign of spring.

If you can get that far enough away from the summer fest grounds, then you can open up the grounds and things warm up there finally by the lake.

Yeah, the city of Milwaukee is trying to do a little bit of spring cleaning today, I guess, on the shores of Lake Michigan, but trying to move this boat that has been sitting.

between Bradley Beach and McKinley Beach on Lake Michigan on the Lakefront Milwaukee for more than six months now.

Beach there in October, and they've tried several times to move it.

The last time they tried to move it, the boat that they got to try to move it also got stuck.

And frankly, at this point, I'm rooting for the boat.

I'm rooting for the boat to stay.

because they've made such a big deal of this.

They're closing down Link Memorial, the big boulevard on the lakefront today to move this boat.

And last time they did a big to-do of it, and the mayor was there and all of this, that they were unsuccessful in their efforts.

So, you know, I'm absolutely rooting for the boat in this one.

It's just too funny.

It's just absolutely

hilarious.

Things that you would not expect.

Now there's the things that you do expect and that's part of what we're gonna get into first off when talking about the Wisconsin legislature.

And it's a familiar pattern where the Republican leadership passes bills that they like, they sound good, makes them feel good, they know Governor Evers is gonna veto them, he vetoes them, they attempt an override, they of course can't override, and they would learn their lesson, right?

And never try to pass bad bills like that again because they're not gonna get signed into law.

No.

And that seems to be a theme with some of the bills in committee this week.

And Dan, I don't expect you to know the answer, but we'll ask it anyway.

Why?

Why passing the same bills over and over again knowing that Governor Evers is going to veto them?

We're in this era of divided government, and we have been since Tony Evers took office in 2019.

We're in the third year of Tony Evers' second term as governor, and the Republicans in those legislatures still haven't seemed to figure out that they are working.

in a space of divided government.

And so there's a package of bills that's making its way through the state legislature on reforming kind of the unemployment insurance program.

And as so many Republican initiatives on these types of things do, it is...

creating more barriers to access benefits, making it more difficult for people to, you know, to get benefits.

I heard some, you know, democratic legislators called it, you know, basically a penalty for an added penalty for getting fired from your job.

And in this moment where, you know, Doge is, you know, eliminating all sorts of jobs, we just saw last week that the hundreds of jobs with AmeriCorps are being eliminated, you know, now doesn't seem like the time to, you know,

make extra, make it even more difficult for people to access benefits.

They even are proposing to change Wisconsin's unemployment insurance program to rename it the reemployment assistance instead of unemployment.

Oh, Lordy, that's downright Soviet out

of

them is to say, well, if we just, you know, relabel this as some kind of reemployment assistance, that that's going to fix everything when it does sound exactly like, you know,

kick kick a man while he's down kick a woman while she's down and jobless and looking for something we're not going to do anything about the childcare crisis that we talked about in the last hour with green Hendrickson and instead yeah we're we're talking about these extra hoops like according to the proposal

as I'm reading off of a Wisconsin Public Radio story here, for example, a person would need to have direct contact with potential employers and expand the current requirements that a person search for work every week while they're collecting unemployment insurance.

And that's, again, on its face.

People go, oh, I don't see a problem with that.

If you haven't been unemployed and you haven't faced that barrier of trying to make direct contact, if you've got a small business,

On your long to-do list is one of them making time to greet everybody that comes to your front door and says, hey, you got a job?

Or do you find some other way to get around it, making it tough to have direct contact, making it tough to justify getting your benefits?

It's just, it's one hoop after another that Republicans want poor people to jump through.

Yeah, I'm quoting again from that that same Wisconsin public radio story from a few weeks ago a modern Rivera Wagner said this body wants to add hoops and red tape Complications at a time when people are yearning for help not punishment and instead of extending a hand We're adding to add more government to track down fraud that barely exists So there's a number of different bills here that are part of this package They have all now passed the assembly and today they have a public hearing in the state Senate.

So, you know

As these continue to move through, you know, the tighter majorities now that we have in the Wisconsin state legislature, you know, I can expect these bills.

To pass but I would you know take note of some of those take some of those swing votes as they make their way through the Senate There's going to be some people who are going to be defending their record and if you are creating more barriers to I don't know Let's say Medicaid at a time when our senior senator is saying we should cut Medicaid from the federal budget or in the federal budget

You know, that's going to create some problems for people downstream from these decisions.

It's going to create a lot of problems for people downstream from these decisions and...

Again, I always feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but because some people love jumping to conclusions in the comment sections, people go, oh, you guys are defending fraud and waste and abuse.

And we're just getting back to Ronald Reagan's welfare queen mythology here.

Of course, there are people who abuse a system.

Any system has people that come in and try to get around the rules.

But to...

take something and do something so radical with it with so very little fraud.

It doesn't matter if you're talking about election fraud or unemployment compensation.

Again, you're picking on kind of the smallest thing to justify getting rid of the program when you know what, just just be who you are and say, I don't think unemployed people should get help.

I don't think you know, whatever at your extreme position here, Dan and stop trying to you know, just

Weasel around it saying, oh, this is all about waste, fraud, and abuse.

We've long since shown where that is just not substantial enough to justify throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

You're absolutely right.

And it's it's this constant tension that you have when it comes to these types of bills, too, because it's just like, I think you, you know, Democrats want to say, hey, well, let's let's

you know, at bolster the safety net, let's extend more options for healthcare to people, fund education, all of these different kinds of things, and be there for people when they need help.

And I think, you know, as we're looking at right now with some of these federal job cuts, I think people need these types of safety net.

policies in place to be able to be there when people need them.

And this is what Republicans do over and over again.

They just chip away and find any way to weaken these programs so that they're ineffective and then people don't like them and then they can cut them.

And it's the same, you were kind of talking about it before with immigration.

It's just like, yes, we want to have reforms to...

the immigration system, it is broken, but what Republicans do to legal immigration, too, is just continue to chip away at all those pathways for people who want to go about the process legally.

And it's the same thing with these, you know, access to public benefits and this unemployment insurance and, you know, like you said, the Kremlin-esque way of calling it, re-employment assistance to go about this as well.

It's silly and sad all at the same time.

Let us switch gears talking with Dan Schaefer, political editor for Civic Media about Josh Schoeman, the Washington County executive.

And I talked a little bit about him yesterday just based on what little I've seen of him from the pandemic onward.

So as somebody who's down there in the Milwaukee area, talk to us a bit more about how he is perceived.

I certainly sense a stereotypical hostility toward Milwaukee.

I certainly heard him

playing up his support of Donald Trump's tariffs.

So I mean, is there anything that indicates he would be independent or should we be expecting again, like Tony Weed up in Northeast Wisconsin, try to get that early Trump endorsement and be be one with with all things Trump?

Yeah, I think he is, you know, very much a typical typical Republican in so many ways.

And, you know, one of the things that has

You know, he has been part of he's been a regular on conservative talk radio in the Milwaukee market.

You know, that's a really big thing.

And he gets his name out there and he makes certain headlines.

And and but he, you know, he talked in his launch video about, you know, about loving your neighbor.

And one of the things that he's done to raise his profile in a really significant way.

has just been to bash Milwaukee, and it's your typical wow counties versus Milwaukee type of thing.

You know, when the Milwaukee raised its sales tax about a year and a half ago now, he posted something out there saying that, you know, hey, come spend your money in Washington County.

Instead of spending it in Milwaukee where you have a greater sales tax and it's just like I get that if you're you know a small business and you're advertising you know buying furniture or something like that But it's another thing when you're a politician and you recognize that those shared revenue negotiations that happened went to save a bunch of jobs in city services in law enforcement in public safety in all of these different areas and I think it is that was a really cynical ploy kind of led to this back and forth between him

and the mayor of Milwaukee, Cavalier Johnson, saying there was a comment involving Cracker Barrel, if people remember that at all.

But I also think I want to point this out from Schoeman's record as well.

So in 2022, he was making a lot of noise.

And this is about a referendum that he was advancing in Washington County called the Anti-Crime Plan Referendum to add 30 and a half positions to the Washington County Sheriff's Department.

And he was really playing this up.

throughout the whole election cycle during the midterms as you know hey we're you know we're in this red county we're gonna fund our police this was right you know in the height of the anti you know defund the police backlash that was happening in conservative politics in particular in the time and he made a lot of noise over the course of that fall saying that you know hey we're gonna do this Milwaukee cuts its police department we're gonna we're gonna fund ours blah blah blah blah blah well people voted against that referendum pretty resoundingly and in one of the reddest counties

in the state, he failed at his effort to...

in this quote unquote anti-crime plan to add positions to the sheriff's department and it failed pretty resoundingly like it was a 56% of the voters rejected that so to me that is it's just quite the record of non-accomplishment to run on when this was one of your key policy initiatives on kind of a home run issue in a county that votes like 70 to 75 percent for republicans most of the time and he was unable to get that passed so you know he's he's a divisive politician he

Ash is Milwaukee at the same time.

He talks about loving your neighbor and getting back to that type of Wisconsin.

He is a typical politician, and he is part of the problem.

Without a doubt, Dan Schaefer, political editor for Civic Media and creator of the Reconbobulation area, where the column this week is about it being time to kill the partial veto.

We'll talk more about that as well.

But I want to let you know that tomorrow on the program, we will have state superintendent of public instruction, Dr. Jill Underly.

joining us for our weekly homeroom segment, Joseph Becky joining us as well.

I'm Pat Kratlow reminding you, when you finish that Pledge of Allegiance, hit on every word, including the last one, liberty and justice for all.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

If you thought there wasn't nearly enough pack right low at eight o'clock and said, we'll just keep them until nine o'clock, check this out, he's going to be part of matinee on air as well.

coming up in the next hour.

It's like more me now.

I feel like Oprah, I'm going to put out a magazine, put myself on the cover every issue.

That's that.

It's what the people demand, Dan Schaefer.

No, people have spoken and the

people have said more Pat right now.

No, they certainly have not.

But thankfully, management hasn't caught on yet.

Hey, the recon population area had an event recently, a little happy hour thing.

How'd that go?

That's

right, we got together last Thursday at Third Space Brewing in Milwaukee, one of my favorite breweries in town here.

And yeah, it was a great opportunity to see a lot of the people and who, you know, are part of our, you know, part of the re-combobulation areas, extended universe of contributors and supporters and friends and all of that.

And it was a wonderful time to get together and celebrate the little, the goofy little community that we've built over at the re-combobulation area.

A community that cares.

That's really at the bottom line.

I mentioned before the break that there was a new column at the recombobulation area.

I neglected to mention it was a guest column by Emily Mills, who is for years put so much good state stuff musings on social media.

And it was her column about killing the partial veto, although maybe not right away, Dan.

Yeah, Emily's column, I would definitely encourage you to read it.

It's a really good one.

It talks about how

this partial video that even as they agree with the ends of this, which is funding public education in Wisconsin, maybe no governor should have this type of power.

But I think what they get at here is also kind of one of the tensions that we're facing in this moment as the Trump administration moves.

Further towards authoritarianism like does it is it really the fight that we should be picking right now?

To address something like this when so much else is happening So I think that is really an interesting issue to explore more broadly like should we address certain, you know state level reforms things like that Yes, you know, we can walk and chew gum right but but is you know, do we also want to see

Democrats at this particular moment fighting back against the Trump administration, fighting against the Republican Party in any way they can.

So I think that's what makes this such an interesting topic and a good column.

Well, yeah, it is a very good column and kind of closes with that whole specter of, you know, in some ways, we are fighting the creep of fascism of those who will basically use our norms against us, that if they are not rules, if they are not laws, and hell, even if they are laws sometimes, we can get around them.

maybe we should not be unilaterally disarming democracy with some of the weapons that are out there.

I'm, I too am not saying that, you know, this, this partial veto was perfect and deserved to be around.

But at the moment, it might be one of the few things that, for example, Governor Tony Evers has with such a hostile legislature.

Let me ask you back to Josh Shulman running for governor.

And we do know that there was a manufacturing CEO down in that area who started a political action committee.

So do you get any impression that Republicans are getting set to like clear the decks for Showman or was he simply the first of what might be several Republicans to get into a governor's race?

Yeah, I think he's he's the first of a few.

You know, I do expect that this will this will be a competitive primary in some capacity.

Who exactly that will be that remains to be seen.

You know, there's a lot of names kind of being bandied about right now.

Tom Tiffany is one of them up in your neck of the woods there.

Mr. Crite low.

They you know, even Eric Hovde has been mentioned as another repeat statewide candidate as well.

And you know, you have to wonder if if now

be the time for somebody like Brian Stile, who has been a good fundraiser and who has overperformed.

election expectations in his district.

You know, I would, you know, the some of the national political news yesterday won in particular out of Georgia with with Brian Kemp choosing not to run for Senate in 2026.

Maybe the maybe the Republicans who are, you know, somebody like Brian style who has overproporned, but maybe they don't want 2026 to be the year that they jump into a statewide race.

I do wonder if that's part of the calculus for some folks on the right as well right now.

I don't know why not.

I mean, conventional wisdom, if nothing else, tells you that the mid-term elections are almost never good for a president.

The only real exception being 2004 and that, you know, the Iraq war was still, you know, early on and still had, you know, broader support back then.

But this would not seem to me to be the cycle where some folks would necessarily gamble with their careers if they wanted you.

You want to

You want somebody that has nothing to fear, can say whatever they want, and feel like they're bulletproof.

So, Ron Johnson.

Maybe he runs for governor next year, because after all, in today's Journal Sentinel, he all but says, get rid of Medicaid.

So, I mean, clearly this man has no fear of being labeled as too extreme.

Maybe we need to start the shadow campaign of him for governor.

Boy, wouldn't that be

something.

It would be something.

Frankly, I don't love your idea, Pat.

I don't love

it.

Neither do I fell out of my mouth and I'm like, Oh, boy, is that really what you want?

But, you know, we are stuck at this point.

Stuck isn't the right word.

You know, Governor Evers can make his decision when he wants to, but he says it'll be after the budget.

And so we are kind of a holding pattern, shall we say.

And things are going to happen real fast once Tony Evers makes his decision on 2026.

Absolutely.

And I think there's going to be a lot of dominoes depending that will fall in certain directions based on what the governor decides.

But I think we've kind of gotten into this, maybe in part because of Ron Johnson, where candidates are making these decisions a little bit later in the cycle.

And I think nationally, you see like the news out of Georgia or news out of Michigan or whatever.

But Ron Johnson made his really late in 2022.

Eric Hovey made his decision.

late to run.

A lot of these other self funders can do that.

So I think that's part of it too.

Dan Chafer from the Reconbobillation Area.

Dan, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Talk to you later.

Thanks, Pat.

Root for the

boat today in Milwaukee.

Root for the boat.

My thanks to today's guest.

Dan Schaefer, Chad Holmes, Dan Hagen, Kareen Hendrickson, Hans Brayton Moser, Sheila Everhart, Sherita Booker, Christina Laurie, and to you for being here this morning.

I'm Pat Krightlow, founding editor of Up North News, the Wisconsin Home for Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy newsroom.

Enjoy your day.

We'll see you tomorrow morning here up north, 6 a.m.

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